Obama

Michael Medved’s discussion of history as it relates to our law enforcement traditions and the Left’s lack of knowledge regarding our Anglo-American history… which they enjoy.

“I want to thank every sheriff in America. Since our founding, the independently elected sheriff has been the people’s protector, who keeps law enforcement close to and accountable to people through the elected process,” Sessions said in remarks at the National Sheriffs Association winter meeting, adding, “The office of sheriff is a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement.” – Jeff Sessions

MOONBATTERY notes Senator Schatz’s (like in “I shat” my pants?)offense taken and explains in written word what Medved does in spoken word:

This failure to despise Anglo-American heritage was seized upon at once by the thought police. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) righteously barked:

Do you know anyone who says “Anglo-American heritage” in a sentence? What could possibly be the purpose of saying that other than to pit Americans against each other? For the chief law enforcement officer to use a dog whistle like that is appalling. Best NO vote I ever cast.

Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for more than a decade, said captured suspects deserve to file writs of habeus corpus.

Calling it “the foundation of Anglo-American law,” he said the principle “says very simply: If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, ‘Why was I grabbed?’ And say, ‘Maybe you’ve got the wrong person.’”

Schatz could use some edification regarding why of our Anglo-American legal tradition is relevant to the office of sheriff:

THE WORD “SHERIFF” IS A COMBINATION OF THE ANGLO-SAXON WORDS FOR “SHIRE” (WHAT WE TODAY CALL A “COUNTY”) AND “REEVE” (MEANING “GUARDIAN”). THE COUNTY GUARDIANS OF ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR ORGANIZING COMMUNAL DEFENSE.

Never mind. The most useful thing about dog whistles is that moonbat demagogues can hear them whenever they want to.

(emphasis added for history)

Communal Defense. You mean these Leftist Democrats are against a “communal” organization? How did a community organizer win the Presidency twice then? What about this:

We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

Is that racist? We already have a community guardian, a sheriff. Is calling for another one assuming Anglo-American traditions a dog whistle?

William F. Buckley used to remark about what he called the “invincible ignorance” of liberals. Too bad he didn’t live to see Sen. Brian Schatz. After Senator Schatz complained about Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s use of “Anglo-American tradition” as a “dog whistle” for racists, Paul called him a moron, presumably because there aren’t many stronger words available for ignorance this epic. On thing I will say for liberals like Schatz: they have a finely-tuned sense of hearing, as they are able to make out “dog whistles” that even dogs can’t hear.

I wonder whether Sen. Schatz has taken a look at the flag of the state he represents (Hawaii) lately:

The Hawaiian flag was designed at the request of King Kamehameha I. It has eight stripes of white, red and blue that represent the eight main islands. The flag of Great Britain is emblazoned in the upper left corner to honor Hawaii’s friendship with the British. The combination of the stripes of the United States flag and the Union Jack of Great Britain is said to have pleased the merchant shippers of both nations. The flag was adopted for official state use in 1959.

Paul and I have already commented on the invincible ignorance of Sen. Brian Schatz’s comment that invoking “Anglo-American heritage” is racist, and it really does seem as though Sen. Schatz was jumping to someone’s talking points memo about what right-thinking people on the coasts should say about Attorney General Sessions. Because Schatz has company, such as this from the likely next governor of California:

Here is some great commentary from a few different posts by Gateway Pundit (HERE and HERE):

The artist who painted former President Obama’s portrait for the Portrait Gallery, part of the Smithsonian Institution, has an interesting past.

[….]

Since Obama’s portrait was unveiled, I’ve received a flurry of text messages from outraged artist friends I made while living in New York. No, they weren’t outraged because they saw Kehinde Wiley’s other painting that feature black women murdering white women. They were outraged because Kehinde Wiley is a terrible artist who only rose to prominence, something they have been attempting to do their entire lives, in the art world because he is a racist gay black man. And if that werent enough: he doesn’t even paint his own work.

Back in April 2012, Wiley New York magazine wrote a glowing piece covering Wiley and his “global reach.” When Wiley was asked about one of the anti-white paintings in his studio, his response is not only shocking but shows a complete lack of any sort of intellectual depth:

A tall, elegant black woman in a long blue dress—the canvas is enormous, eight feet by ten feet—calmly staring down the viewer. In one hand, she holds a knife. In the other, a cleanly severed brunette female head. “It’s sort of a play on the ‘kill whitey’ thing,” Wiley says.

That unabashed bombast has made Wiley a walking superlative: the most successful black artist since Basquiat, possibly the wealthiest painter of his generation, certainly the one who made his name earliest (he was 26 for his first major solo show), a gay man who has become the great painter of machismo for the swag era, a bootstrapper from South Central who talks like a Yale professor (much of the time), a genius self-­promoter who’s managed to have it both ways in an art world that loves having its critical cake and eating the spectacle of it, too, and a crossover phenomenon who is at once the hip-hop world’s favorite fine artist (Spike Lee and LL Cool J own pieces) and the gallery world’s most popular hip-hop ambassador. Not to mention an all-around positive guy.

Can you imagine for a second if George W. Bush, or any other former president, decided on a painter who was famous for depicting white people killing black people to paint his official portrait? It’s hard to imagine, right? Yea, that’s because it’s disgusting and backward.

DAILY CALLER notes as well that the artist puts sperm into his portraits — and many are saying Obama has a big goo on his face:

The artist who painted former President Barack Obama for the National Portrait Gallery in the Smithsonian has a history of including depictions of sperm in his work, and has been described as “predatory” and “perverse” by The Village Voice.

Kehinde Wiley is well-known for recreating famous paintings, but replacing the featured white person – often a noble or general – with a young black man. Wiley often met the men on the street, brought them into his studio, and had them pick a work to be painted into, the famously left-wing Village Voice reported in March 2015.

Wiley “lures young men into his studio with the promise of power and glamour,” writer and art critic Jessica Dawson wrote. She called the behavior “predatory” and “perverse.”

Dawson also points out the sexuality in several of his pieces and highlights that they often include sperm. Wiley’s rendition of “St. Andrew,” for example, shows a black man grinding “his crotch against a wooden cross” with “free-floating spermatozoa” painted on the canvas, Dawson wrote.

SARA CARTER: The second memo that the House Intelligence Committee is putting together. We’re still waiting for the Inspector General’s report that is going to be coming out. That’s going to be directed at Andrew McCabe, now former director Andrew McCabe, and others. And I think they’re terrified what’s going to come out here.

Here’s what we know. There was a second dossier that was put together by a person named Cody Shearer. He is a very controversial activist, a former reporter who worked with the Clintons in the past. And the FBI was also using this second dossier as part of what they were doing to back up the other dossier by Christopher Steele, an unverified dossier. And we believe Chistopher Steele was also sending information to the State Department in bits and snippets. But I think the most important thing here and one of the things they are going to be looking at very closely are the leaks. There were a number of leaks out unverified information by possibly senior members of the Obama administration. (GATEWAY PUNDIT)

And we know this racist UFO black nationalist cop killing cult leader was brought into Obama’s church for an award one Sunday, and we also know that this racist UFO black nationalist cop killing cult leader’s personage was placed on Obama’s church’s magazine cover not once, but three times. We also know that some of this racist UFO black nationalist cop killing cult leader’s sermons/speeches were sold in Obama’s church’s book store during his tenure, as well as these outright racist books:

A Black Theology of Liberation;

Black Theology & Black Power

(I purchased these and other books myself from Trinity United Church of Christ’s book store online, which was called – Akiba Bookstore)

Here is a small sample to make the point about these books:

“The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew” — Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

“The goal of black theology is the destruction of everything white, so that blacks can be liberated from alien gods” — James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, p.62

“White religionists are not capable of perceiving the blackness of God, because their satanic whiteness is a denial of the very essence of divinity. That is why whites are finding and will continue to find the black experience a disturbing reality” — James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, p.64

NATIONAL REVIEW has a lot on this just released photo, but here is the main issue:

A journalist announced last week that he will publish a photograph of then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (D) and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan that he took in 2005 at a Congressional Black Caucus meeting, but did not make public because he believed it would have “made a difference” to Obama’s political future.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER, ASKIA MUHAMMAD, TOLD THE TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE THAT HE “GAVE THE PICTURE UP AT THE TIME AND BASICALLY SWORE SECRECY.”

“I gave the picture up at the time and basically swore secrecy,” Muhammad said in an exclusive interview with the Trice Edney News Wire this week. “BUT AFTER THE NOMINATION WAS SECURED AND ALL THE WAY UP UNTIL THE INAUGURATION; THEN FOR EIGHT YEARS AFTER HE WAS PRESIDENT, IT WAS KEPT UNDER COVER.”

As for any debate that the photo could have made a difference in the outcome of the Obama presidential election, Muhammad is emphatic: “I INSIST. IT ABSOLUTELY WOULD HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE.”

(emphasis added)

Our country would have been better off if it had been released, and the press were doing it’s job rather than worshiping Obama as a Messianic figure.

Gotta keep black racism on the DL in order to get into the Presidency. Mmmm, this is as good a time as ever to update my analogy replacing Bush here to reflect Trump vs. Obama:

…I will use Trump in my analogy. Let us say for twenty years Trump attended a church that twice prominently displayed David Dukes likeness on the cover of their church’s magazine which reaches 20,000 homes, and a third time alongside Barry Mills (the co-founder of the Aryan Brotherhood). Even inviting David Duke to the pulpit to receive a “lifetime achievement award.” Even selling sermons by David Duke in the church’s book store. Authors of sermons sold in Trump’s church’s bookstore teach in accordance with Christian Identity’s view that Jews and blacks are offspring of Satan and Eve via a sexual encounter in the Garden of Eden. In the church’s bookstore, the entire time Trump attended, books like Mein Kampf (Hitler) and My Awakening (David Duke), and other blatantly racist books were sold. Even members of the Aryan Brotherhood felt comfortable enough to sit in the pews at times… being that the pastor of Trump’s church was once a reverend for the group.

…if Trump had gone to a church like that I would walk arm-n-arm with my Democratic comrades in making sure he would never be President. Wouldn’t this be expected of me?

Here is the “not”-analogy of Obama:

Obama’s pastor not only was a minister in The Nation of Islam, an anti-Semitic/racist group, but the church’s book store sells sermons by Louise Farrakhan, who teaches that the white man was created on the Island of Cyprus by a mad scientist, Yakub. (Mr. Farrakhan also believes he was taken up on a UFO to meet God, and was told he was a little messiah, take note also that he was directly involved in the deaths of police officers as well.) Louise Farrakhan was featured twice on the church’s magazine which reach 20,000[plus] homes in the Chicago area. Even placing on the cover with Louise Farrakhan a third time the founder of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad. Elijah Muhammad likewise taught that the white man was created by Yakub 6,600 years ago. Walter, Louise Farrakhan teaches that the Jews in Israel do not belong there, and that the true Jews are the black people. Louise Farrakhan was invited into Obama’s church, to the pulpit and given a “lifetime achievement award.” In fact, the New Black Panthers and members of the Nation of Islam often times sat in the pews for sermons by Rev. Wright, whom Obama called a mentor. Not to mention Obama’s wife pictured with racist, anti-Semetic, UFO cult members.

So I expect you, [insert Leftist name], to join arm-and-arm with me on finding out why the media, and Democrats who are so concerned about racism let such a man into office, when, if the tables were turned, I wouldn’t want in office.

It was a year ago and Comey was explaining why Hillary’s close aide, Cheryl Mills, not only received an immunity agreement in exchange for turning over her laptop, but a pass on lying to the FBI.

The FBI Director claimed that Mills had to receive immunity because the laptop might be protected by attorney-client privilege. Mills, like Hillary Clinton, had worked as a lawyer. But they were both government officials working for the State Department. Hillary wasn’t Mills’ client. The government was.

Comey and his people knew the law. They chose to ignore it to protect a key Hillary aide from rolling over. Mills was the woman Hillary would send in to clean up her dirty laundry. Mills had taken point on the email server cover-up. If anyone knew where the bodies were buried, she did. Instead not only did she get an immunity agreement, but the FBI also agreed to destroy the computers after the search.

Mills had told the FBI that she didn’t know about Hillary’s email server. But the FBI had notes and emails proving that Mills was lying. And when Comey was asked about it, he came out with, “There’s always conflicting recollections of facts.”

No doubt.

That is what the lawyer of the woman who had been caught lying to the FBI might have been expected to argue. But there were no charges, instead the FBI Director was presenting her defense.

George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn were charged with lying to investigators. But lying to investigators isn’t a crime when you’re Hillary Clinton.

Or one of her associates.

Hillary Clinton had told the FBI that she had no idea that the “C” stood for confidential. Instead of laughing in her face or arresting her, the FBI boss testified personally to her truthfulness.

Had Mills been working for Trump, the same number would have been run on Mills as on Flynn and Papadopoulos. But the men interviewing Mills didn’t want her to sing. They wanted her to keep quiet.

Mills and Abedin were interviewed by the FBI’s Peter Strzok and the DOJ’s David Laufman. Strzok was exchanging pro-Hillary and anti-Trump messages in an extramarital affair with a woman working for FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. McCabe’s wife had received a sizable amount of money from a Clinton ally. Laufman, whose counterintelligence section was heading the investigation, is an Obama donor.

Mills’ lie made it more urgent to hand her an immunity agreement on any pretext. The immunity agreement wasn’t leverage for her testimony. It was leverage to keep her from testifying. The obstruction of justice was coming from the inside.

Strzok received input on the Comey letter exonerating Clinton. The Mills interview killed two birds with one stone. A key Hillary aide got immunity and the evidence would be destroyed.

This wasn’t an interview. It was a cover-up.

It’s why Comey sounded like Mills’ lawyer. And why so many Clinton associates got immunity agreements. Why the FBI agreed to destroy evidence. Why there were no recordings of Hillary’s testimony. And why lying to the FBI wasn’t a crime when it came to Hillary and her aides.

But the double standard kicked in when the Clinton cover-up crew went after Trump.

While Mills received an immunity agreement based on an imaginary attorney-client privilege that didn’t exist, Manafort was denied attorney-client privilege with his actual attorney.

The double standard isn’t surprising when you look at who was doing the interviewing.

Strzok and Laufman had also interviewed Hillary. No recordings were made of the session. But Comey testified that it’s a “crime to lie to us”.

Not for the Clintons and their associates.

Hillary had told her interviewers that she hadn’t received training on handling classified information, but she signed a document testifying that she had. Hillary claimed that she hadn’t carried a second phone, but an aide, Justin Cooper, who made the server possible, testified that indeed she did.

Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills told the same lie.

These are the kinds of misstep that Team Mueller would have used to hang a Trump associate. But Comey testified that Hillary Clinton did not lie.

And that meant he was lying.

Not only did Clinton’s people lie to the FBI. But the head of the FBI had lied for them.

Very rarely to I laud this guy. (Hat-Tip to DAILY WIRE) But he is in a slim minority of Leftists that have [even if VERY late] spoken the truth about Pocahontas. LIKE when he says Trump is racist. He doesn’t have any proof of this, like I clearly show of Obama.

John and Ken discuss Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s actions in Libya creating modern day slave bazaars. Obviously what happened in the vacuum was Islam was just given space to apply the Quran. Take note that the five nations in this article are Muslim: “Top 5 African Countries Where Slavery Is Still Uncontrolled.”

…..This brings us to the Cornell University’s Black Students United and whether the organization is engaging in racism — against blacks. The BSU complains that the prestigious Ivy League school admits too many blacks — from Africa and the Caribbean. “We demand that Cornell Admissions to come up with a plan to actively increase the presence of underrepresented Black students on this campus,” the BSU student group said in its demands. “We define underrepresented Black students as Black Americans who have several generations (more than two) in this country.”

Hold the phone. Isn’t the mantra of modern higher education “diversity,” “inclusion” and “overcoming disadvantage”? If so, the black African and Caribbean students would seem to nail all three.

Maybe the problem is that it is tough to explain why so many black foreign applicants outperform America-born blacks on what some call “culturally biased” standardized tests. A 2007 study by Princeton and University of Pennsylvania sociologists examined the standardized test scores of black students enrolled at 28 selective universities. As to the SAT, the test most colleges use as an important factor in offering admission, the study found that foreign-born black college-bound students earned a statistically significant advantage on SAT scores, averaging a score of 1250 (out of 1600) compared to 1193 average points for their American black counterparts. This explains, in large part, why first- or second-generation black immigrants made up 27 percent of the black student bodies at colleges nationwide. In the Ivy League, black immigrants comprised 41 percent of black students.

What is the basis for the black students’ protest? Don’t black foreigners face even more obstacles? After all, America spends more on education, K through 12, than the top 34 industrialized countries save Switzerland, Austria, Norway and Luxembourg. New York City and Washington, D.C., annually spend approximately $21,000 and $15,000 per student, respectively.

BSU might want to consider the letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal written by a man from Congo:

“I grew up in the Congo and have numerous friends in the U.S. from the Congo and other African countries who are here for an education or a better life. Every one of them is grateful for the opportunity to secure an excellent education. … Most come here from different cultures with minimal money and limited English language skills. Interestingly, I’ve never heard one complain about discrimination, obstacles or being a victim. Rather, they are grateful. Juxtapose this with Cornell’s Black Students United (BSU) whose members feel they should be treated better than every other color or race if they have ancestors who’ve been here for more than two generations.

“The counterintuitive posturing of American blacks denying other blacks from Africa or the Caribbean is appalling. First-generation African or Caribbean students have more obstacles to overcome to get into any university, much less a prestigious one like Cornell. Furthermore, the liberal American blacks who worship at the altar of ‘diversity’ and ‘victimhood’ should welcome real Africans or Caribbeans versus seeking preferences for those American blacks who truly have the superior advantage of having grown up in the U.S.

“If my Congolese friends are grateful for their opportunities here and have more challenges to overcome, why should American blacks get special treatment? Call this action what it is: racism. And it’s being pushed and protected under the guise of alleged victimization and preferential treatment at the expense of others of all colors and walks of life. So I challenge the BSU folks to start focusing on the concept of succeeding in life instead of always dwelling on the idea that the system is rigged against them.”…

…In 2005, a left-leaning blogger wrote, “Illegal immigration wreaks havoc economically, socially, and culturally; makes a mockery of the rule of law; and is disgraceful just on basic fairness grounds alone.” In 2006, a liberal columnist wrote that “immigration reduces the wages of domestic workers who compete with immigrants” and that “the fiscal burden of low-wage immigrants is also pretty clear.” His conclusion: “We’ll need to reduce the inflow of low-skill immigrants.” That same year, a Democratic senator wrote, “When I see Mexican flags waved at proimmigration demonstrations, I sometimes feel a flush of patriotic resentment. When I’m forced to use a translator to communicate with the guy fixing my car, I feel a certain frustration.”

The blogger was Glenn Greenwald. The columnist was Paul Krugman. The senator was Barack Obama.

Prominent liberals didn’t oppose immigration a decade ago. Most acknowledged its benefits to America’s economy and culture. They supported a path to citizenship for the undocumented. Still, they routinely asserted that low-skilled immigrants depressed the wages of low-skilled American workers and strained America’s welfare state. And they were far more likely than liberals today are to acknowledge that, as Krugman put it, “immigration is an intensely painful topic … because it places basic principles in conflict.”

Today, little of that ambivalence remains. In 2008, the Democratic platform called undocumented immigrants “our neighbors.” But it also warned, “We cannot continue to allow people to enter the United States undetected, undocumented, and unchecked,” adding that “those who enter our country’s borders illegally, and those who employ them, disrespect the rule of the law.” By 2016, such language was gone. The party’s platform described America’s immigration system as a problem, but not illegal immigration itself. And it focused almost entirely on the forms of immigration enforcement that Democrats opposed. In its immigration section, the 2008 platform referred three times to people entering the country “illegally.” The immigration section of the 2016 platform didn’t use the word illegal, or any variation of it, at all.

“A decade or two ago,” says Jason Furman, a former chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, “Democrats were divided on immigration. Now everyone agrees and is passionate and thinks very little about any potential downsides.” How did this come to be?

[….]

A larger explanation is political. Between 2008 and 2016, Democrats became more and more confident that the country’s growing Latino population gave the party an electoral edge. To win the presidency, Democrats convinced themselves, they didn’t need to reassure white people skeptical of immigration so long as they turned out their Latino base. “The fastest-growing sector of the American electorate stampeded toward the Democrats this November,” Salon declared after Obama’s 2008 win. “If that pattern continues, the GOP is doomed to 40 years of wandering in a desert.”

[….]

Alongside pressure from pro-immigrant activists came pressure from corporate America, especially the Democrat-aligned tech industry, which uses the H-1B visa program to import workers. In 2010, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, along with the CEOs of companies including Hewlett-Packard, Boeing, Disney, and News Corporation, formed New American Economy to advocate for business-friendly immigration policies. Three years later, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates helped found FWD.us to promote a similar agenda.

This combination of Latino and corporate activism made it perilous for Democrats to discuss immigration’s costs, as Bernie Sanders learned the hard way. In July 2015, two months after officially announcing his candidacy for president, Sanders was interviewed by Ezra Klein, the editor in chief of Vox. Klein asked whether, in order to fight global poverty, the U.S. should consider “sharply raising the level of immigration we permit, even up to a level of open borders.” Sanders reacted with horror. “That’s a Koch brothers proposal,” he scoffed. He went on to insist that “right-wing people in this country would love … an open-border policy. Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them. I don’t believe in that. I think we have to raise wages in this country.”

Sanders came under immediate attack. Vox’s Dylan Matthews declared that his “fear of immigrant labor is ugly—and wrongheaded.” The president of FWD.us accused Sanders of “the sort of backward-looking thinking that progressives have rightly moved away from in the past years.” ThinkProgress published a blog post titled “Why Immigration Is the Hole in Bernie Sanders’ Progressive Agenda.” The senator, it argued, was supporting “the idea that immigrants coming to the U.S. are taking jobs and hurting the economy, a theory that has been proven incorrect.”

Sanders stopped emphasizing immigration’s costs. By January 2016, FWD.us’s policy director noted with satisfaction that he had “evolved on this issue.”

But has the claim that “immigrants coming to the U.S. are taking jobs” actually been proved “incorrect”? A decade ago, liberals weren’t so sure. In 2006, Krugman wrote that America was experiencing “large increases in the number of low-skill workers relative to other inputs into production, so it’s inevitable that this means a fall in wages.”

It’s hard to imagine a prominent liberal columnist writing that sentence today. To the contrary, progressive commentators now routinely claim that there’s a near-consensus among economists on immigration’s benefits.

Obviously some are (to answer my own question). Who is perfect? What the press and many following them do is make opinions after viewing skewed or twisted fact. This will be a post I will return to and add to as the election cycle continue. Enjoy.

This has been a fun week for me. It allows me to explain to people I like how their opinions are often mislead by not lining up their thinking with the facts. A unfounded trust of media sometimes misleads these persons, or an underlying bias. I will change the names of the people involved to keep their identity (as many are friends) private and the embarrassment level low.

In conversation with a friend the term kook was used in referencing Michele Bachmann. I footnoted that as I was surprised because she is a self-avowed Republican and must know of all the attacks leveled at Reagan, a person whom she admires. However, when I posted the following video for her and mentioned this demeaning term, she wrote:

Here is her first response:

Yes, and I stand by my opinion. She is a ranter and a raver. Ha I think he has a crush on her ;)…one can be a conservative kook. I am. No one said she is not bright, one can be bright and a kook. The left respects us as much as we respect them, not at all, we demonize them they demonize us, around and around we go. It is tiresome and a waste of time when there is so much real work to do in this country.

Another lovely lady added:

Michelle Bachmann is an embarrassment to me! And ya don’t get ANY MORE conservative than ME!!!!

I politely continue the conversation:

Okay, for both you ladies. You have stated some things (“[s]he is a ranter and a raver,” and, “Michelle Bachmann is an embarrassment”). Please, since I do not know as much about her as you ladies about her, enlighten me. [A generalization is a good one if it points to reality.] A side note. I would respectfully disagree — also — with the point that demonization is of equal value between Left and Right (How Does the Left View the Right?). Chris Matthews, Michael Moore, and others can walk onto a campus and give a speech and be treated like celebrity’s. Ann Coulter, David Horowitz, have to employ personal body guards and the university has police in large numbers. From gatherings on the Mall in Washington (union/Democratic meetings leave it in shambles — Tea Partiers leave it cleaner than when they found it), to supposed violence/racism at Tea Parties compared to the Left’s gathering [the most recent was the teacher unions joining forces in L.A. with common-and-on (Welcome To Los Angeles). The conservative Republican has a different demeanor than that of their compatriot on the Left. Why, because the largely secular left has as their religion, not the Judeo-Christian ethic, but the “Rousseaulian animal” which they are founded on. Or as Ann Coulter points out, the “mob mentality.” A great quote I just added to my quotes page from a book I am reading is this (see my notes):

There is a Liberal sentiment that it should also punish those who take more than their “fair share.” But what is their fair share? (Shakespeare suggests that each should be treated not according to his deserts, but according to God’s mercy, or none of us would escape whipping.)

The concept of Fairness, for all its attractiveness to sentiment, is a dangerous one (cf. quota hiring and enrollment, and talk of “reparations”). Deviations from the Law, which is to say the Constitution, to accommodate specifically alleged identity-group injustices will all inevitably be expanded, universalized, and exploited until there remains no law, but only constant petition of Government.

We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law’s treatment.

But “fairness” is not only a nonlegal but an antilegal process, for it deals not with universally applicable principles and strictures, but with specific cases, responding to the perceived or proclaimed needs of individual claimants, and their desire for extralegal preference. And it could be said to substitute fairness (a determination which must always be subjective) for justice (the application of the legislated will of the electorate), is to enshrine greed—the greed, in this case, not for wealth, but for preference. The socialistic spirit of the Left indicts ambition and the pursuit of wealth as Greed, and appeals, supposedly on behalf of “the people,” to the State for “fairness.”….

….But such fairness can only be the non-Constitutional intervention of the State in the legal, Constitutional process—awarding, as it sees fit, money (reparations), preferment (affirmative action), or entertainment (confiscation)….

….”Don’t you care?” is the admonition implicit in the very visage of the Liberals of my acquaintance on their understanding that I have embraced Conservatism. But the Talmud understood of old that good intentions can lead to evil—vide Busing, Urban Renewal, Affirmative Action, Welfare, et cetera, to name the more immediately apparent, and not to mention the, literally, tens of thousands of Federal and State statutes limiting freedom of trade, which is to say, of the right of the individual to make a living, and, so earn that wealth which would, in its necessary expenditure, allow him to provide a living to others….

…. I recognized that though, as a lifelong Liberal, I endorsed and paid lip service to “social justice,” which is to say, to equality of result, I actually based the important decisions of my life—those in which I was personally going to be affected by the outcome—upon the principle of equality of opportunity; and, further, that so did everyone I knew. Many, I saw, were prepared to pay more taxes, as a form of Charity, which is to say, to hand off to the Government the choice of programs and recipients of their hard-earned money, but no one was prepared to be on the short end of the failed Government pro-grams, however well-intentioned. (For example—one might endorse a program giving to minorities preference in award of government contracts; but, as a business owner, one would fight to get the best possible job under the best possible terms regardless of such a program, and would, in fact, work by all legal and, perhaps by semi- or illegal means to subvert any program that enforced upon the pro-prietor a bad business decision.)*

Further, one, in paying the government to relieve him of a feeling of social responsibility, might not be bothered to question what in fact constituted a minority, and whether, in fact, such minority contracts were actually benefiting the minority so enshrined, or were being subverted to shell corporations and straw men. †

*No one would say of a firefighter, hired under rules reducing the height requirement, and thus unable to carry one’s child to safety, “Nonetheless, I am glad I voted for that ‘more fair’ law.”

† As, indeed, they are, or, in the best case, to those among the applicants claiming eligibility most capable of framing, supporting, or bribing their claims to the front of the line. All claims cannot be met. The politicians and bureaucrats discriminating between claims will necessarily favor those redounding to their individual or party benefit—so the eternal problem of “Fairness,” supposedly solved by Government distribution of funds, becomes, yet again and inevitably, a question of graft.

Here is one for you Sean, I personally think it shameful and not in the spirit of her Christianity that in one old anti-gay speech of hers in ’04 she singles Melissa Etheridge out, she expressed the hope that a breast-cancer-stricken Melissa Etheridge would take advantage of her illness to quit being a lesbian. I have more current faux pas’ but that one sticks with a person.

My response:

….Now on to the Ethridge thing which is one of ten listed of her craziest statements floating about the internet. Note that I am not here to defend lists against her, I doubt she will ultimately be the nominee, but this is a prime example of why one should investigate beyond pop-culture things said of Republicans (or for that matter, Democrats) filtered through the Huffington post or the Daily Kos which ends up digested by mainstream audiences.

Here is the Left’s understanding of her statement:

Michele Bachmann hopes Melissa Etheridge’s cancer will teach her to stop being gay

Here is the fuller quote about this 2004 point:

“Unfortunately she is now suffering from breast cancer, so keep her in your prayers. This may be an opportunity for her now to be open to some spiritual things, now that she is suffering with that physical disease. She is a lesbian**.”

In that same speech she intimated a bit more about her views saying that, “almost all, if not all, individuals who have gone into the lifestyle have been abused at one time in their life, either by a male or by a female.” Let me post a statement by a lesbian pro-choice pundit on this topic:

◆ … and now all manner of sexual perversion enjoys the protection and support of once what was a legitimate civil-rights effort for decent people. The real slippery slope has been the one leading into the Left’s moral vacuum. It is a singular attitude that prohibits any judgment about obvious moral decay because of the paranoid belief that judgment of any sort would destroy the gay lifestyle, whatever that is…. I believe this grab for children by the sexually confused adults of the Gay Elite represents the most serious problem facing our culture today…. Here come the elephant again: Almost without exception, the gay men I know (and that’s too many to count) have a story of some kind of sexual trauma or abuse in their childhood — molestation by a parent or an authority figure, or seduction as an adolescent at the hands of an adult. The gay community must face the truth and see sexual molestation of an adolescent for the abuse it is, instead of the ‘coming-of-age’ experience many [gays] regard it as being. Until then, the Gay Elite will continue to promote a culture of alcohol and drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, and suicide by AIDS. — Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values (Roseville: Prima, 2003), 90, 99.

Every lesbian that felt close enough to share their thoughts on this issue with my mom during her hippie days to her trailer park days has been abused, usually by a male family member. And the two homosexual men I have been close enough to talk about their positions on same-sex marriage and their past have intimated a sodomistic experience at a very young age; one by a stranger, and the other by a family member. (They are both against same sex-marriage by-the-by, as are many homosexuals… just not the vocal part of that community.) That is not to say this has been the case in all homosexual experiences, as the last caller intimates via the Michael Medved Show (load and listen at the 15-minute mark: Observations About Public Perception of Homosexuality).

I believe Bachmann had this larger thought in mind (as she has most likely read every book by Tammy Bruce) when talking about this topic as well as the hope that one reflects on spiritual things more when sick than when not,

“But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” — C.S. Lewis.

Mind you she may not be very well spoken on issues that I have written an entire chapter on (Roman Epicurean’ism – Natural Law and Homosexuality), but she certainly didn’t say or mean what the Left accuses her of. Yeah? Can you see the subject/object distinctions? I am sure that if pressed on the issue by a knowledgeable person she would admit the only real sin is rejecting the finished work on the Cross offered by God through His Son. Which is the hope she intimated — not so clearly — in her speech.

** Just to be clear… I do not think cancer is caused necessarily by sin… we ALL are guaranteed with a 1-to-1 stat in regards to life and death. This will NOT change via a lifestyle choice. There are [though] serious health issues that are often ignored from this lifestyle, more is said on this via a post and under the heading, “Homosexuality and the Public Health”

After some other posts I end with this:

I wanted to wrap this topic of conversation up by showing how many bumper sticker mantras/beliefs enter into what we view as fact and what we base opinions off of. Opinions should always be based on truth, or what we can best understand as truth. The truth of the example given above is ACTUALLY that Bachmann asked her audience to pray for Melissa Etheridge, and tried to encapsulate what any apologist of the faith may try to point out — that God will at times use our toughest trials to evolve our spiritual thinking in leaps and bounds. I would agree that Michele Bachmann may not be able to make the point as eloquent as a “CS Lewis.”

[….]

For those who wish to understand how such thinking — as exemplified herein — becomes mainstream understanding, I will recommend a dated book that is one of the best at explaining this phenomenon:

Bachman’s ideology bugs me. Her extreme “Christian” values. My first impression of her was her HUGE lie about Obama’s 2 Million dollar a day” trip to India- she lied right to the camera! She’s just a miserable angry bitch to me, and you could only say “Obama Sucks” soooo many times without offering anything of value in return before it gets stale.

I respond:

I don’t think that was a lie Greg? I think people may have said some things based on bad information, this is different than a lie. For example, liberals tend to say Bush lied about WMDs. If he “lied,” then so did the French, German, Russian, Israeli Saudi Arabia, and Jordanian intelligence as well as the CIA. This would also make Madeline Albright, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John F. Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, Robert Byrd, and others liars (for more info, see my PAGE on WMDs). This is one word that is thrown around by libs almost as much as the race card. It would be like me saying Obama lied when he said there were 57 states. There has to be some leeway here on both side, yeah?

So before going further, let’s get this straight, if Michele Bachmann got her info from a source of good standing and repeated it, she would be wrong, and not a liar, right?

So news orgs and financial sites like http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/, and http://www.ndtv.com/, as well as the http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ basically said the following in some manner:

A top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit has reckoned that a whopping $200 million (Rs 900 crore approx) per day would be spent by various teams coming from the US in connection with Obama’s two-day stay in the city. “A huge amount of around USD 200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit,” the official said in Mumbai.

Michele Bachmann then picked this up (maybe a staff member?) and ran with it. She didn’t lie Greg. Stop it. She was mistaken and took some bad information that the Indian press ran with. Right? This is your first main point and we need to reach agreement on this so that I [we] may know this conversation is one that maturely takes facts into consideration and changes our thoughts on the matter to fit the facts. Again, the main issue here is media bias… why would the press run with this and blame Bachmann as they did? Yes she said it, but she was not the author of this info. One of the most recent examples is this thanking by Michelle Obama to the press for leaving her kids alone and mediaites telling Michele Bachmann to her face all of her 23 foster children will be investigated (PJ MEDIA).

So she didn’t lie, right Greg?

He then retorts:

‎”a half truth is a while lie”. The false claim is in the same vein as John Kyl’s “over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is aortions” – selective information meant as slander, and not for any other purpose other than to spread lies, and just now on the news Michele wouldn’t address her “misstatements” other than she’s a “serious candidate”. You’re just trying to polish a turd with me on the Obama India trip, I’m not buying it.

I stay on topic after he rambles on on a myriad of topics:

(Stay focused.) We are still talking about one of your first points (outside of your use of “extremist” in describing a conservative woman of faith) and haven’t even made it to a second yet. Back up what you say, or, when what you believe doesn’t fit the facts – lay your pride aside and say, “you know, I may have jumped the gun with that.”

Okay, Bachmann didn’t even use a “white lie” when she passed on that information. She sisn’t twist any of it, she didn’t know it was false… she or her handlers ran with it based on the fact that it came from typically reliable sources:

Even as far back as Oct 23 the Economic Times said, “There will be US naval ships, along with Indian vessels, patrolling the sea till about 330-km from the shore. This is to negate the possibility of a missile being fired from a distance,” the officer said. (Economic Times)

So, are you willing to say on this point you may have jumped the gun? …. (My Facebook video [June 28, 2011] transferred to my YouTube):

Example Three

Believing Scientists Holding Nobel Prizes

He never answered my direct and clear questions or answered the evidence that challenged his embedded bias. Instead he used a tactic that 16-years of discussions on the www. have taught me… change the subject and bombard the person with many questions or topics… all at once. However, in his posting a “top-ten” list from online, I chose this one and then posted:

7. “There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.” -Rep. Michele Bachmann, Oct. 2006

I respond:

Okay, since you are dodging my question/statement, I will give an example from your list. I guarantee that more than half of those can be explained away using the same common sense I did in the position above that you seem to not want to engage in, the example I gave of Melissa Ethridge near the beginning, and this one.

Bachmann said…. this: “There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.”

Okay, Nobel Laureates who believe in I.D. or some form of it:

Here Uncommon Descent has a few listed, please, see their post for more info on each of these gentleman:

Of course there are many scientists who were or are leaders in technology/science, literature and the like that are believers in some form of Intelligent Design. The example I give (and have given to you in past discussions is….

1) The guy most credited in getting us to the moon, Wernher von Braun: von Braun began work at the US Army Ordinance Corps testing grounds at White Sands, New Mexico. In 1952 he became technical director of the army’s ballistic-missile program. It was in the 1950’s that he produced rockets for US satellites (the first, Explorer 1, was launched early 1958) and early space flights by astronauts. He held an administrative post at NASA from 1970-1972 as well. We would have never made it to the moon if it were not for von Braun.

2) Dr Raymond V. Damadian is one that’s invention was key in diagnosing me with Multiple Sclerosis. He invented the MRI and his first working model is forever in the Smithsonian Institution‘s Hall of Medical Sciences

The MRI scanner has revolutionized the field of Medical Science. In 1977, Dr. Raymond Damadian invented the MRI scanner. The recipient of the 2001 Lemelson MIT achievement award, and the 1988 National Medal of Technology from President Ronald Regan, his name stands among those of the greatest inventors in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Join us in this rare personal interview of Dr. Damadian as he describes the invention and comments on multiple scientific controversies related to the origin of life. His answers will surprise you and leave you pondering your own worldview. See amazing Medical MRI images and state of the art animations. Expand your mind.

3) Benjamin S. Carson, M.D., one of the world’s foremost pediatric neurosurgeons, is professor and chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. Born on September 18, 1951, in Detroit to a single mother in a working class neighborhood, Ben showed promise from a young age. A graduate of Yale and the University of Michigan Medical School, he was rated by a Time issue titled “America’s Best” as a “super surgeon.” Dr. Carson was also selected by CNN and Time as one of the nation’s top 20 physicians and scientists, and by the Library of Congress as one of 89 “living-legends.”

These three men are young earth creationists (YEC) and support their claims by evidence and faith. One last point here are lists found on my blog

A few other examples of current men of science who are young earth creationists:

Professor Dr Bernard Brandstater—pioneer in anesthetics. Amongst many other achievements, he pioneered assisted breathing for premature babies with prolonged incubation and developed an improved catheter for epidural anesthesia, both adopted around the world.

Prof. Stuart Burgess—a world expert in biomimetics (imitating design in nature). He is Professor of Engineering Design, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bristol (UK) and leads the Design Engineering Research Group at the university. Dr Burgess is the author of over 40 papers published in science journals, and another 50 conference proceedings. He has also registered 7 patents and has received various awards, the Wessex Institute Scientific Medal being the most recent.

Professor Dr Ben Carson—pioneer pediatric neurosurgeon. He was long-term director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. He was the first surgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins joined at the head and also pioneered surgery to cure epilepsy in young children, and much else. He has been awarded 51 honorary doctorates, including from Yale and Columbia universities in recognition of his outstanding achievements. He is a member of the Alpha Honor Medical Society, the Horatio Alger Society of Distinguished Americans, and sits on numerous business and education boards. In 2001, CNN and Time magazine named Ben Carson as one of the nation’s 20 foremost physicians and scientists. In that same year, the Library of Congress selected him as one of 89 ‘Living Legends’. In February 2008, President Bush awarded Carson the Ford’s Theater Lincoln Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the USA’s highest civilian honors.

Dr Raymond Damadian (see above)—largely responsible for developing medical imaging using magnetic resonance (MRI). He has been honored with the United States’ National Medal of Technology, the Lincoln-Edison Medal, and induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame alongside Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and the Wright brothers. In 2001 the Lemelson-MIT program bestowed its lifetime achievement award on Dr Damadian as “the man who invented the MRI scanner”. It is commonly recognized that he was discriminated against in not at least sharing a Nobel Prize for his work (two others shared the award), although Damadian was the discoverer that diseased tissue would have a different signal from healthy.’

Dr John Hartnett—developed the world’s most precise atomic clocks, which are used in research and industry around the globe. He is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award (DORA) fellow at the University of Adelaide, where he is an Associate Professor. In his relatively short career, he has published more than 200 papers in scientific journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings.

Dr Raymond Jones—solved the major problem of the indigestibility of Leucaena (a tropical legume) for grazing cattle in Australia, among other achievements. This research has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to the Australian beef industry. He was honored with the CSIRO Gold Medal for Research Excellence, and the Urrbrae Award.

Dr Felix Konotey-Ahulu—many pioneering contributions, especially in sickle cell disease management. He is Kwegyir Aggrey Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics, University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and Consultant Physician Genetic Counsellor in Sickle Cell and Other Haemoglobinopathies, Phoenix Hospital Group, London, UK. Ironically, sickle cell disease is often incorrectly held up as a ‘proof of evolution’ in science textbooks. Dr Konotey-Ahulu has received many awards in recognition of his work.

Dr John Sanford—has been granted over 30 patents arising from his research in plant breeding and genetics. His most significant scientific contributions involve three inventions, the biolistic (`gene gun’) process, pathogen-derived resistance, and genetic immunization. A large fraction of the transgenic crops (in terms of both numbers and area planted) grown in the world today were genetically engineered using the gene gun technology developed by John and his collaborators. Dr Sanford was honoured with the Distinguished Inventor Award by the Central New York Patent Law Association in 1990 and 1995)

Dr Wally (Siang Hwa) Tow—groundbreaking research in ‘molar pregnancy’, a poverty-related disease. He was invited to lecture in some fourteen top Obstetrics-Gynaecology departments in America in 1962-3, including leading universities such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, New York, UCLA, Cornell, and Stanford. He was awarded the William Blair Bell Lectureship by the RCOG in recognition of the importance of this work. He served as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, National University of Singapore.